Problem with HD on Toshiba 57H81. Please help!! (1 Viewer)

[brianacook]

My Dad just got a Scientific Atlanta 3100HD set top box today from his cable company. He has it connected via component video to his Toshiba 57H81.

Prior to today, he had digital cable and would view everything in the "theaterwide 1" mode which worked great.

Now, when he tries to watch any channel other that the 4 HD ones available, the picture is windowboxed to full frame! When he pushes the "pic size" button, it gives him an "unavailable" message!

Does anyone know why this is happening? Is it an unavoidable problem or am I missing some simple fix here?

Please help!! I'm counting on you guys!!

Thanks,

Brian

 

[JohnnyG]

The 3100HD always outputs a 1080i signal through the component video jacks. Since 1080i is always a widescreen image (the 3100HD adds the black bars to the sides), there is no reason for the TV to allow stretching or zooming. This isn't specific to Toshiba either as all sets are exactly like this.

You'll just have to get used to switching video inputs on the TV when you want to watch a regular TV program in one of the TVs stretch or zoom modes.

 

[brianacook]

Well,

I solved this problem for him by simultaneously running s-video to a separate input on the tv, so all he has to do is switch input sources for HD viewing. But . . .

Since I have not yet talked him into using a receiver for his tv audio, he still has a problem. Only one of the tv inputs has the audio output from the HD box. How bad would it be to split the audio from the HD box into both inputs on the tv?

Brian

 

[JohnnyG]

Not a problem at all, really.

 

[Andrew Pierce]

That's exactly how I have mine set up. I have absolutely zero issues with using a pair of inexpensive Y-splitters to run the audio to both sources. (My receiver has 5.1 input from my DVD player but no onboard decoder)

I'm actually running the Explorer 3100 on a 4:3 Toshiba 43H71 TV, which makes my windowboxing problem worse. On 4:3 content, it is windowboxed on the side to fit in the center of the widescreen 1080i picture, and then my TV letterboxes it to make the shape correct. Basically, this results in 4" black bars around the entire picture, so I've got essentially a 36" image in the center of my 43" TV. I don't have a zoom, but I can switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspects.

All I would need for me to be super happy would be for my 3100HD to not apply the black bars to the side, and I can adjust the vertical aspect ratio as needed, however there is no setting on the box to do this. I suspect that adding this option would take one programmer an hour or two tops. This would leave my only complaint with the 3100HD the fact that it won't superimpose graphics on HD content, but that is due to the onboard graphics engine's 640x480 limitation, and could only be fixed by better hardware.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that there is any way to provide feedback directly to Scientific-Atlanta, and my local Time Warner support guys don't want to hear it.